Dieter Zoern

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Dieter Zoern with parts of his fur collection (1986)

Dieter Zoern (born June 13, 1930 in Mecklenburg , † September 24, 2017 in Hamburg ) was a German fur designer . According to the Hamburger Abendblatt, he was considered to be "one of the most famous furriers in the world" over the course of 40 years in the fur industry . During this time he was also working as a photographer. After giving up his fur business with attached skinning, he devoted himself entirely to this profession.

Furrier and fur designer

Zoern “Z” in a gold sable coat
Fur fashion show 1981, in the middle daughter Andrea

Dieter Zoern began his career as a fur designer with an apprenticeship as a furrier in Wismar. He later worked as a design assistant in Hamburg, and from a small office on Jungfernstieg he also sold his model designs . In 1968 he opened a fur shop with skinning on the Hamburg Colonnaden 25-27. The business and workshop rooms extended from the ground floor to the second floor.

Over the years, his clients have included the Adenauer family , star tenor Placido Domingo , pianist Ivo Pogorelich , and singers Caterina Valente and Gitte Haenning . In 1986 he announced that he had already sold 22 sables that year , the most expensive at 250,000 marks. Zoern: "Times are unnervingly normal again. Luxury is popular." At that time the company had around 40 employees. Daughter Andrea, who had been modeling for him since she was eight, was now also in the business.

In 1973 Dieter Zoern created a faux fur collection around the same time as Jil Sander , which caused a lot of excitement in the fur industry. All the more so when in December 1973 an article appeared in Der Spiegel magazine in which he prophesied: “[...] I have believed in faux fur for years . He will come". The synthetic furs presented at 60 companies were “admired but not ordered” by buyers. The Jil Sander collection was also unsuccessful; it took a few more years for fake fur to establish itself on the German market. Zoern at the time: "The German woman has a penchant for the real".

At the same time, Zoern designed fur collections for various clothing companies. Since around 1988 he has been working for the Furrytale Group in Finland, at the 1989 fur fair as "Zoern Prêt-à-porter" in a large fashion show with 280 models, 20 mannequins and 10 male models. He also worked for other industries, such as wallpaper design.

Dieter Zoern was also very involved in the fur industry. In the mid-1990s, he campaigned, among other things, at fashion seminars of the Central Association of the Furrier Craft to inspire his colleagues, who are now younger through a generation change, for more modern fur. A fashion group around Dieter Zoern began to shear furs and create new, light shapes.

Towards the end of his business activity, he moved to Hamburg's Neue ABC-Straße . In March 1988, after a first so-called vigil by anti-fur opponents, Zoern announced for the first time that he was thinking of giving up business.

Business activities ceased on March 31, 1991.

photographer

In addition to his work as a fur couturier, Dieter Zoern had already attended a photography school in the 1970s. At first he photographed his own models, but very quickly he also took on orders from industry colleagues and organizations for their advertising. In 1986, about five years before he gave up his furrier business, he already mentioned to the press, probably looking ahead to himself: “Black and white photos last longer than furs”.

After he closed his business in 1990, he moved to Taghazout , a former small fishing village in Morocco: "My wife had bought a house there 15 years earlier, north of Agadir, 30 meters from the beach and 130 kilometers from the desert". He converted the fisherman's house, a former sardine smokehouse, into his old age residence. After he had everything set up, boredom overcame him. So he began again to take photos of “what fascinated him”, “gardens and architecture”. In Morocco he received his first orders for hotel brochures and catalogs.

But Zoern also kept an apartment in Hamburg, reduced from 260 square meters on Hofweg to 130 square meters on Rothenbaum. "Because this is where my roots are, my friends, the children and six grandchildren live."

For the illustrated book Gardens of the Orient - Paradises on Earth , he often had difficulties persuading the owners to open their gardens for photo purposes. His even more famous colleague, the fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent with his famous Majorelle garden , had hesitated for a long time : "Maybe it helped a little that we knew each other from before". His plan announced in October 1999 to publish a book about the caravanserai next, does not seem to have come true.

Dieter Zoern spent the last years of his life up to his death at the age of 87 in Hamburg, Winterhuder Weg 43. In addition, after he had sold his house in Taghazout, his first residence was a house in Artà , Mallorca for a few years .

Works

  • The furrier trade in upheaval . In: 20 years of the Federal Fur School - the start of a new generation . 1988 (→ table of contents)
  • Gardens of the Orient - paradises on earth . Hsgr. Christa von Hantelmann, DuMont Verlag, December 2002

Web links

Commons : Dieter Zoern  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dieter Zoern's obituary notice
  2. ^ A b c Caroline Lafrenz: Furriers in the gardens of the Orient . October 5, 1999. Retrieved December 17, 2017.
  3. ↑ a b S. D .: International fashion prizes won. The designer and master craftsman Dieter Zoern from Mecklenburg . In: Das Ostpreußenblatt , September 19, 1987, p. 11. Retrieved December 19, 2017.
  4. ↑ a b c d e Doris Banuscher: Dieter Zoern - Gardens and paradises in the picture . In: Die Welt , October 19, 1999. Retrieved December 18, 2017.
  5. ↑ Without mentioning the author: "Who is it who can afford something like that" . In: Der Spiegel , November 24, 1986.
  6. ↑ "HE": Note: According to Der Spiegel, "a" fatal "penchant for the real," according to Zoern, however, the word "fatal" is not part of his vocabulary and was not mentioned in the interview
  7. ↑ ads in: Fur report Kurt Lindemann , Oberursel October 10, 1988, p.1; March 3, 1989 p. 5 .. If the author is not indicated : New for the fur fair: "Zoern Prêt-à-porter" , January 19, 1989, p. 10.
  8. ^ "HE": Hamburg's "fur cutter" Dieter Zoern designed a faux fur collection . In: Die Pelzwirtschaft , Heft 4, 1973, pp. 174, 176. Added, without indication of the author: Falsche Monkeys . From: Der Spiegel , No. 12, 1973. Retrieved December 19, 2017.
  9. ↑ http://www.pelzinstitut.de/aktuell/detailansicht/article/das-deutsche-pelzinstitut-feiert-geburtstag-2 German fur institute: 25 years of DPI: From attacks by animal rights activists to the seal of approval . Retrieved December 19, 2017.
  10. ↑ Without an author's name: Dieter Zoern's business is covered by a »vigil« . In: Pelzreport Kurt Lindemann , Oberursel October 10, 1988, p. 14.
  11. ↑ www.f Firmenwissen.de: Dieter Zoern fur models . Retrieved December 19, 2017.
  12. ^ Information from daughter Andrea Prantner from January 2, 2018.